I spent 8 hours in the ER on Sunday. Or something close to that. The adventure started as a pretty normal day. I didn’t feel super bad or anything. I got up later than I have been because I had stayed up later trying to get ahead on the end of the month patreon things. I really wanted to no get caught on the back foot again this month, especially with Thanksgiving this week to fuck everything up. I dicked around instead of getting right to work and at about 1:45ish I sat down in earnest to start the page for Monday. That weird smell that comes and goes in the house came back on Saturday really strong, along with a bad sinus infection that made me extremely dizzy one day. Or rather made my balance seem off. Dizzy doesn’t really describe the feeling as accurately as imbalanced. Anyway, I opened my room door up to let more air circulate (although the smell is everywhere even though I’m the only person who can smell it) then sat and turned to my Surface. I suddenly had a weird feeling that I couldn’t really identify. A bunch of stuff happened very quickly and I’m not 100% sure of the order. I think I suddenly felt very hot, which isn’t totally abnormal for me. I often get a pinched nerve in my back that makes me feel like I’m hot even if I’m Ice cold. As that feeling washed over me I had a sort of stitch in my side. Not a sharp pain, or something that incapacitated me, just a kind of unpleasant stitch under one of my ribs. Then there was this feeling like someone balled up their fist inside my back. Not pain, but just a feeling like all the muscles in one part of my middle back all tightly moved to a single point.
For whatever reason it all felt so odd all at once that I texted my mom that I felt like something might be wrong with me. I wasn’t in a panic or anything, it was just so odd I felt like I needed to make a note of it to someone and I had my phone in my hand.
Then, all of the sudden, I blacked out. I didn’t close my eyes. They just turned off. I could feel them being open and then suddenly I’m blind and in another second maybe my brain also just shuts off. I was already sitting on the floor so I didn’t really have anywhere to fall to. I just sort of slumped over. Not really even on to anything. My body lolled to one side and I didn’t really experience it. I just came to a few seconds later in a complete panic attack. I’m not 100% sure if the anxiety was triggered by the loss of consciousness, or the anxiety was just the next step in a process.
I have fainted in the past, but only ever as a result of extreme emotional shock. In those instances the panic was 100% a result of the faint, but this time it didn’t have the same kind of causal relation in my mind which may have contributed to me experiencing it in an altered way.
Regardless, in this moment I have to start making choices because if there really is something bad wrong with me there is no one coming to help for at least 5 hours unless I reach out. I came back to awareness impaired. There was a confusion in my head that isn’t common to my regular anxiety episodes. Plus, I began gasping for air in long constricted gasps. That said, I didn’t feel like I needed to be breathing like that in my actual chest. most of my body was signaling that I was getting the appropriate amount of air and I had nothing to be worried about, but my brain was telling me I absolutely was not getting enough oxygen and I needed to breathe like a maniac. By this point my hear rate has kicked on and it’s pounding. This set of symptoms are not what I would call normal for my garden variety anxiety attacks. My brain is clearly threatening to close up shop again, but I’m full of adrenalin now and my focus has shot back.
I have to make a choice right now. If I just call my dad and I pass out he cannot move me by himself. It will take at minimum 3 men to move me without a stretcher and one of them can’t be dad. It’s ten minutes at least for him to get here if he’s where I expect him to be. If I pitch over and don’t get oxygen it’s brain damage at minimum and more likely death.
If I can keep conscious for long enough by regulating my body by sheer force of will I potentially have a chance if someone has at least some training and gear to deal with things. It’s 30 minutes from here to the nearest hospital. Those seem like long odds, but I decide I need to call for help while I am still lucid enough to speak and get my address out understandably. And as an American I know that if I do this I am signing up for THOUSANDS of dollars of payments just for an ambulance ride. Setting aside everything else if I live through whatever this is I am financially crippling myself.
I told myself the last time something like this happened I was going to ride it out and die if it came to it, but at that time I wasn’t so tethered to my desire to finish my story. I had written a part that could serve as a good enough ending and that could be enough for a very small webcomic creator’s final statement. Now I’m farther along and getting to parts I’ve wanted to draw for years. I didn’t want to go.
So I made the call and they sent the ambulance for me.
At some point the tiny town that is much closer to my house got itself an ambulance service. So the actual wait was probably under ten minutes. In that time however I convinced myself I was fine and then tried to retrieve my wallet and a few things I thought I might need and felt like I wasn’t getting enough air again. After walking maybe 40 feet both ways I was taking in those gasping breaths again. All the while everything that is actually in charge of oxygen in my body seemed to be basically fine. It was my head and limbs that were having issues.
I’m not sure where I am on the danger scale because this mess is so far beyond what I recognize as a typical anxiety attack at this point I don’t know what to think anymore.
I’m still capable of speech though and capable enough to seem capable. When the wagon train of vehicles appear the occupants seem to think I’m doing pretty well. On paper there’s not a lot wrong with me. As they’re doing various things though I feel like there is just not enough air for me and I’m starting to struggle to keep myself awake. As I’m getting into the ambulance my legs completely give out, which is certainly not normal. Even when I faint my legs don’t just crumple, they resist the fall and keep trying to keep me upright. I tend to slide down walls rather than just pitch over. This time all the strength left them and I didn’t fall out of the vehicle because I had a death grip on a handle. After a moment to gather myself I was able to get myself on to the stretcher. They were all convinced that I was freezing and kept trying to throw blankets on me. It was cold outside, but I was running hot and the shaking was the anxiety shakes I get pretty regularly.
The whole ride to town they have me talking and I have fuck all idea what I was saying. I know they asked me what medications I take and I could not answer them. I had them in my pocket and I’m showing it to them like these people are just gonna know all pills on sight. Like, I was not with it at this point. They put a blanket over my legs at one point and I was like “You need to take that off I can’t breathe with a blanket on my legs.”

Anyway they get me to the ER and start doing all the things. I feel like my insides aren’t in the right places anymore, but on paper I’m essentially fine. My blood pressure is high, but it’s trending lower as they calm me down. Apart from that my heart rate is good, my oxygen is excellent, I’m fine as far as they can tell. I feel like things are wrong inside me and I’m explaining what I’m feeling in the most elaborate detail I can muster. My brain is till telling me I am 100% not getting enough air, but the rest of me is like “Homie, we’re good.” One of my ribs in particular feels messed up and hurts a little when I breathe really deep, but it’s not my heart. That thing in my back is still going crazy too, but it’s not like pain, it’s like some kind of feeling like everything is trying to focus on one point in my body. Like someone has a handfull of me and is compressing it to this spot on my back.
While this is going on my eyes are taking turns being in charge. Often in high stress situations my eyes will start taking turns being open and my awareness will move to that side. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before. No one seems to be questioning it so I just leave my eyes to their own devices. Eventually they give me a few nice drugs to relieve pain and maybe calm me down. I never manage to get all the way to calm.
They check my heart enzymes because apparently that’s how you tell if there has been heart damage if you want to check via blood, which I did not know. They are within normal levels but they keep you for like 6 hours to make sure and at the end of that they decide to check it a third and fourth time without the time limit. I’m not sure I’m explaining this correctly because I was sort of in and out of lucidity at various points.
To cut a very long story short they said I seem to be fine, but I’m almost 50, and have comorbidities that should be checked out. So I have to see a heart person at some point soon to make sure I’m basically fine except for my weight.

After all of that I want to make very clear that I have been making sincere efforts to improve my health for a long time now. I do daily exercises and have greatly reduced the swelling in my legs. By contrast to when they were damaged by that infection it is night and day. I have gone for over 3 weeks without needing to have a bloodletting. That is a big improvement from when I had to start having them again. I have made changes to my diet to ensure I don’t become diabetic. I paid special attention to doing things that will improve my ability to sleep and stay asleep long enough to rest. I don’t want anyone going away from here thinking that I just gave up at some point. I just don’t talk about it very much because it is boring to me. It tends to feel like people think I’m lazy because I don’t make a huge show of trying to improve my health. I just don’t like being seen in the process.

Anyway, I have been awake for a very long time, been in the ER for much of that time, and even though it is very late, I made a new page. No one can say that I am not committed to this endeavor. This is important to me. You are important to me. This is how I show my sincere love for the people who support my work. A pure expression of my art. From me to you, in hopes that in so doing I will improve your life in some small way.

I know I tend to me morose, but I fight. I want to stay with you even though I struggle.

2912 Wicked Step.

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